This paper offers a first systematic evaluation of the evidence on the effects of currency unions on the synchronisation of economic activity. Focusing on Europe, we construct a database of about 3,000 business cycles synchronisation coefficients and their design and estimation characteristics....

Standard procedures for output gap estimates, such as the Hodrick-Prescott Filter or the Production Function Method, suffer from the sample phase shift issue at the end of the sample. This often provides unstable and unreliable estimates for the current output gap. However the current estimate...

We analyze when and how much OECD estimates of potential output are revised after recessions and which factors explain the size of these revisions. Inter alia, we find that following a recession, the OECD substantially revises downwards potential output, those revisions are larger than what is...

We evaluate contributions of exogenous loan supply shocks to output dynamics during the Great Depression. Based on a structural VAR, we impose sign restrictions to identify loan supply shocks in addition to standard macroeconomic shocks. Our results indicate that the banking panics that occurred...

Financial repression allows governments to borrow at artificially low interest rates. Quantifying financial repression is challenging, because it relies on an estimate of the interest rate which would prevail in the absence of repression. In this paper, we put forward a quantitative business...

This paper examines the effects of expansionary technology shocks (shocks that increase labor productivity and factor inputs) as opposed to contractionary technology shocks (shocks that increase labor productivity, but decrease factor inputs). We estimate these two shocks jointly based on a...

This paper explores and quantifies the role of endogenous firm entry in amplifying and propagating shocks to the economy. To this end, we estimate two DSGE models on US data with Bayesian methods: one model with endogenous firm entry and translog preferences and one model without. Both models...

This paper explores and quantifies the role of endogenous firm entry in amplifying and propagating shocks to the economy. To this end, we estimate two DSGE models on US data with Bayesian methods: one model with endogenous firm entry and translog preferences and one model without. Both models...

This paper examines the effects of expansionary technology shocks (shocks that increase labor productivity and factor inputs) as opposed to contractionary technology shocks (shocks that increase labor productivity, but decrease factor inputs). We estimate these two shocks jointly based on a...